patrick.net

Rin says

And again, housing projects are for lower income ppl who have no qualifying skills. Many of them will not pass the exams and the DoD has something called the military police/MP, who're far better at law enforcement than some inner city precinct.

Curious, how did you read this and conclude that my plan was about income?

Rin says

Rin says

And again, housing projects are for lower income ppl who have no qualifying skills. Many of them will not pass the exams and the DoD has something called the military police/MP, who're far better at law enforcement than some inner city precinct.

Curious, how did you read this and conclude that my plan was about income?

The income disqualifier is that if the person has some job, like analyst at JP Morgan, he needs to be unemployed for a year before signing on. That's it.

And unfortunately, one can't include his parent's income, so it's money in his own name.

Rin says

Curious, how did you read this and conclude that my plan was about income?

You wrote "a means tested, welfare/state sponsorship program." Then you wasted hours denying it.

curious2 says

Rin says

Curious, how did you read this and conclude that my plan was about income?

You wrote "a means tested, welfare/state sponsorship program ." Then you wasted hours denying the fact.

I think I'd made myself clear

1) The means is the exam

2) One needs to be separated from a job like an analyst in a financial firm or an R&D company, so that the govt stipend isn't a bonus structure.

Rin says

1) The means is the exam

Your refusal to read and think through your own plan means that you literally don't know what you're saying, and I'm not going to waste more time finding links for you, I'll simply cite Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test

I'm not talking about someone else's means test, I'm talking about my own. And I put it out

1) Exams

2) A year separation from prior job

The above is not a big deal and since grants get cancelled and companies go out of business regularly, that separation from work isn't hard to come by.

Rin says

I'm not talking about someone else's means test, I'm talking about my own.

Wake me when you decide to speak English instead of making up your own language as you go along. Otherwise, it's half-baked semantics.

curious2 says

Otherwise, it's half-baked semantics.

Sorry that I'd insulted some sacred, proper compound noun. For me, it's two nouns, forming a conceptual notion, not someone's name or department.

I still don't see why scientists and researchers should be favored by the system.

Peter P says

I still don't see why scientists and researchers should be favored by the system.

They shouldn't. A successful plan would reward results, not credentials. A successful plan would award prizes and grants for innovations that solve shared problems while reducing spending. Our current system has a market failure especially in the medical sector, where technology is used mainly to maximize lemon socialist subsidies. We could benefit from a counterweight program to promote innovations that save money while improving results, e.g. more cures and fewer daily maintenance revenue models.

curious2 says

Our current system has a market failure especially in the medical sector, where technology is used mainly to maximize lemon socialist subsidies. We could benefit from a counterweight program to promote innovations that save money.

Isn't it more efficient to outsource medical research to somewhere with less regulations on human testing? We can even call it moral arbitrage. :-)

Peter P says

Isn't it more efficient to outsource medical research to somewhere with less regulations on human testing?

We already do that, although in practice it means usually outsourcing to places that aren't as particular about results, i.e. when PhRMA wants to sell another disproved drug, they have it tested in a "rescue country" to get FDA approval and American government subsidies. The net result is Americans paying more for drugs that don't work. We could benefit from a program that rewards good results, regardless of where they are produced, although if we want to promote American prosperity we should probably make some effort to promote work happening here.

Peter P says

I still don't see why scientists and researchers should be favored by the system

Here's the thing ... fine arts programs, while interesting, do not require the same level of work to accomplish, relative to let's say mechanical engineering.

When New Renter and I finish off our careers, we will probably not see a single American, graduating from a STEM program, aside from these sort of STEM-to-business school types or premeds or prelaws.

No one will study a subject which require many hours of work, versus something which be can done a lot easier.

What that means is that in the future, the ideas, thinking, etc, will pretty much be in Asia, including formerly closed off countries like Mongolia. Here's a brilliant kid from Mongolia, being recruited by MIT via his success in an online MIT course ...

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/09/13/mongolian-teen-aces-mit-online-course-gets-mit/

In the distant future, that school will maintain a museum, much like the old Polaroid building in Mass, while everything else is done in Asia with research campuses between Seoul, Jakarta, and Almaty. At best, it may only keep its namesake, despite not being anything of importance in Mass.

Thus, what'll happen is that we'll have a society where no one will be studying science and soon, you won't be hearing about a neighbor, working on a water purifier in his basement nor about some guy, attempting to write a paper on spatial anomalies in physics. These inspired individuals will simply give up, earlier on in life, and get videodrome-d.

The resources for real STEM work will be outside of the US but also, Americans won't be able to get technical visas, to work over there, as many of those countries are not easy to immigrate to.

So the end result is bad for America without attempting to get a certain population of individuals, studying science and engineering, whether or not their work is of immediate value.

Rin says

Here's the thing ... fine arts programs, while interesting, do not require the same level of work to accomplish, relative to let's say mechanical engineering.

This is debatable. Engineering degrees, while vigorous, are very straight-forward.

There will always be people studying science and engineering for 2 reasons:

1. they want to start a company
2. they are passionate about the subject

Americans are still the innovative bunch. This is not due to the education system. Rather, the culture here still rewards success, and the first crucial ingredient of success is to be different.

Peter P says

1. they want to start a company

2. they are passionate about the subject

And my idea will help both crowds. In the case of the water purifier guy, he had to develop his own work, independent of a company owning his IP. In addition, he didn't have the Angel investing angle of an SVer, as that would have made his potential royalties from his patents less palatable. Many SVers are money grubber types.

Thus, he worked for years on it and paid his bills by part-time work. When he finally got an Asian company to partner with him, his change of fortune was a direct result of his patent royalties.

The other guy was passionate about physics. He did a lot of his own theoretical work, until he realized that he wasn't going nowhere, and took up a programming job at a bank. I believe that both guys are success stories for STEM for it indicates that independent types can do their own work.

I believe that by 2100, we won't be hearing these stories anymore. Sure, they'll be told over a campfire in Kazakhstan but as you can gather, that's on the other side of the globe.

Rin says

The idea is that by getting a particular score in a series of science & engineering exams, i.e. Organic Chemistry, Signals & Systems, Partial Differential Eqs, etc, one can get a stipend of $32K to $40K per year, to sit around and contemplate. The military will also provide some subsidized housing in a coastal area in the Carolinas, next to a base and thus, provide added security. Others, can either get their own place [ wherever they want ] or live with their parents.

Sir,

Your proposal sounds like a purely Merit based system to focus STEM towards solving real world problems. This progressive type of technology focus, broadly applied was pushed by the White house, and applied over 100 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

It was designed to defuse corruption, and simultaneously redirect funds into Science. Within years the Telegraph was invented, motorized flight, radio, TV, Modern Physics, and the total payoff 100000X the investment.

Now in the 2000s we also have a very corrupt system, of Cronyism, people abandoned Science, and Manufacturing.

With Lawyers expending > $700B per annum, and Basic Small Business funding and Applied Research funding by to NIH, DOE, DOT, DOD

continued:

With Lawyers expending > $700B per annum, and Basic Small Business funding and Applied Research funding by to NIH, DOE, DOT, DOD

With Lawyers expending > $700B per annum, and Basic Small Business funding and Applied Research funding by to NIH, DOE, DOT, DOD less than $3B (1/2 of one percent of that of Legal Fees) - how do you get the Legal / Lobbyist leadership to abandon the non-productive Malinvestment and have a high ROI type investment that you proscribe short of a full fledged Reset?

Peter P says

Isn't it more efficient to outsource medical research to somewhere with less regulations on human testing? We can even call it moral arbitrage. :-)

Lets take this idea to the limit. Lets evaluate what has not been outsourced and attempt to have a NAFTA to outsource other key industries (that remain).

Then near all Americans can work at Target/Walmart/BK/Hardies and will have the pay equalization that Warren/Clinton ascribe to?

Entitlemented says

Your proposal sounds like a purely Merit based system to focus STEM towards solving real world problems.

The idea is not so much a direct 'solving of real world problems' but to give freedom to those, who can do science/engineering work on their own, without the academy or corporate America.

Entitlemented says

how do you get the Legal / Lobbyist leadership to abandon the non-productive Malinvestment and have a high ROI type investment that you proscribe short of a full fledged Reset?

There's nothing one can do with the above. Most of our politicians are lawyers in themselves. And many, upon leaving Congress, join a lobbying firm.

Dems get > 95% of Lobbying funds. No wonder of all the Malinvested and Superstitious Laws...........

Lobbyist To Dems To Repubs To Super PACs

Barnes, Ben $181,410 $167,050 $3,600 $5,000
Bingel, Kelly $149,221 $132,121 $0 $5,000
Burgos, Tonio $246,576 $190,426 $9,050 $40,000
Castagnetti, David $149,225 $143,075 $0 $0
Champlin, Steven M $141,400 $115,900 $0 $25,000
Elmendorf, Steven $168,865 $155,365 $0 $10,000
Fazio, Vic $162,500 $144,900 $0 $1,000
Finley, Shannon $188,896 $171,536 $0 $10,000
Geduldig, Sam K $200,260 $250 $199,760 $0
Graefe, Frederick H $136,526 $111,076 $24,200 $0
Hohlt, Richard F $135,300 $0 $129,300 $0
Jankowsky, Joel $200,615 $174,765 $0 $0
Kies, Kenneth J $180,150 $1,000 $179,150 $0
Kimberly, Richard H $196,000 $1,500 $189,500 $0
Kountoupes, Lisa $124,450 $120,200 $0 $0
MacKinnon, Jeffrey M $148,070 $0 $148,070 $0
O'Brien, Lawrence F III $173,000 $168,000 $0 $5,000
Podesta, Heather $166,998 $127,500 $0 $35,748
Podesta, Tony $178,200 $161,800 $2,600 $0
Raffaniello, Patrick J 'Pat' $148,204 $3,000 $144,204 $0
Ryan, James 'Jimmy' $161,900 $111,900 $0 $50,000
Smith, Michael D $132,380 $130,680 $500 $0
Spicer, Tracy B $131,700 $125,200 $0 $0
Woods, Andrew L $252,700 $145,200 $2,500 $100,000
Zirkin, Nancy $140,849 $134,845 $1,000 $0

This is better to view Lobbyists

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobby_topcontribs.php?cycle=2014&type=F